Acts 15:19-21: The Jerusalem Resolution

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Resolution (15:19-21, 28-29; 21:25)

1)     No, Gentiles do not need to be circumcised (or live as a Jew) in order to be right with God.

2)     Four things to abstain from:

A)   Things polluted by idols / v. 29 – what has been sacrificed to idols

B)    Sexual immorality

C)    Things that have been strangled

D)   Blood

OPTIONS

1)     These refer to Noah’s law (Gen. 9:3-6).

A)   Argument: God’s law to Noah was for all humanity, and not just for Jews like the Law of Moses.

B)    This applies to things that have been strangled and blood even if blood refers to murder and not food.

C)    What about things polluted by idols and sexual immorality?

2)     Fellowship Argument. Gentiles do not need to be live as Jews to be saved, BUT they do need to be sensitive to their Jewish brothers to preserve fellowship.

A)   Lev. 17-18 – The Jerusalem letter lists the same things as Lev. 17-18.

1)     17:1-7, especially v. 7 (sacrificing to goat demons)

(a)   vv. 8-9 – This even applies to those who are not Israelites.

2)     17:10-16 – No blood

(a)   vv. 12-13, 15 – This even applies to those who are not Israelites.

3)     cf. 17:13 – “pour out its blood” / things that have been strangled

4)     Lev. 18 is about unlawful sexual relations

B)    Ezek. 33:23-25 – God did not like that his people did this.

C)    Argument: Gentiles don’t have to live as Jews to be saved, but don’t do things that will blatantly offend your Jewish brethren and prevent you from being able to share table fellowship with them.

1)     This is the point of 15:21. Make thoughtful decisions since there are Jews everywhere.

2)     ESVSB – But he knew that Gentile Christians would have contact with Jewish Christians who still kept the ceremonial provisions, including laws about sacrifices, festivals, unclean foods, and circumcision. He offered a proposal by which Gentile Christians could have fellowship with Jewish Christians and avoid giving unnecessary offense… suggesting that there is no need to give unnecessary offense either to Jewish believers or to unbelieving Jews who might otherwise consider becoming Christians in the future.

3)     NIVAC – “If there was going to be openhearted fellowship between the Jewish and Gentile Christians, there would have to be some sensitivity to Jewish scruples by the Gentiles. Thus, James proposes three prohibitions relating to food (v. 20). Two of these prohibitions (meat from animals killed by strangling and blood) had to do with the Jewish practice of draining the blood of animals before eating them. The prohibition of sexual immorality (porneia) seems to belong to a different category from the rest, and it appears out of place in this list.”[1]

D)   Problem

1)     This option treats these four things as suggestions to get along with people who have different options.

(a)   NET Notes – “These restrictions are not on matters of salvation, but are given as acts of sensitivity to their Jewish brethren…”

(b)   Tyndale Comm. - “Nevertheless, James has a recommendation to make, that the Gentiles should abstain from certain things which were repulsive to Jews.”[2]

2)     That could work for 15:19, but not 15:28

(a)   ESV: burden, requirements

(b)   NASU: essentials

(c)   NKJV: necessary things

3)     Gentiles are required to keep the commandments that applied to Gentiles living in Israel.

A)   Richard Baukham – “Gentiles do not have to become Jews (i.e., proselytes) when they come into the new people of God, but they are required to keep the commandments that applied to Gentiles living in Israel.”[3]

B)    Some laws listed above (Lev. 17:8-9, 12-13, 15)

4)     Gentiles don’t have to be Jews, but you can’t keep associating with pagan idol worship and everything associated with it.[4]

A)   Ειδωλοθυτον

1)     The word

(a)   9x in the NT. Almost always translated in the English Bibles as “things/food/meat sacrificed to idols”

(b)   Makeup of the word

(i)    εἴδωλον – idol, or image

(ii)  θύω – to offer, to kill

2)     This is like Corban (that is, given to God) (Mk. 7:11)

B)    Witherington: The word refers to venue, not menu.

1)     It’s not just the food that is sacrificed to a pagan god (menu).

2)     It is the whole pagan ritual associated with the food in the pagan temple (venue).

(a)   “…I argue that in its NT occurrences the term eidolothuton does not merely connote something—namely, an offering to an idol—it also denotes or at least implies the venue in which such things transpired—the precincts of a pagan temple.”[5]

(b)   “It then does not refer to a sacrifice taken from the temple and eaten elsewhere for the very good reason that the statue of the gods to whom the offering was made and who were believed to participate in the temple feasts were found in the temples themselves.”[6]

(c)   “…eidolothuton means meat consumed in the presence of a god in a temple, where the god’s power and presence were thought to reside.”[7]

(d)   Apologetics Study Bible – “…restrictions were introduced…to lift up Gentile moral standards by prohibiting practices associated with pagan temple worship (idolatry, sexual immorality, and sacrifices of animals).”[8]

(e)   Faithlife Study Bible - “In this context, each of the four practices refers to what takes place in pagan temples and worship.”[9]

3)     Description of the venue:

(a)   “Normally, most of the meat would be quickly cooked in the temple kitchen, with the priests and staff getting a portion along with the family and friends of the one making the offering. This food would be eaten in the adjacent cenaculum, or temple dining room, with the guests reclining on couches.

(b)   Needless to say, a person who went through this whole procedure was consuming meat in a very different setting, a setting with a very different religious ethos and social impact, than someone who simply bought meat in the market and ate it at home. Eating in the temple was the successful climax of an act of worship, not merely just another meal. Temple dining rooms were the restaurants of antiquity for big celebrations…There is even clear historical evidence of a small statue of the god being brought out to recline on couch with the diners…so it is clear that these banquets had a necessary religious dimension and function…Such meals were always connected with a religious sacrifice. An act of worship would have concluded with a dinner, or, put the other way around, the dinner would have been preceded by the main portion of an act of worship as a necessary prerequisite.”[10]

C)    Extra-Biblical references

1)     4 Macc. 5:1-3

(a)   “The tyrant Antiochus, sitting in state with his counselors on a certain high place, and with his armed soldiers standing around him, 2 ordered the guards to seize each and every Hebrew and to compel them to eat pork and food sacrificed to idols. 3 If any were not willing to eat defiling food, they were to be broken on the wheel and killed.”

(b)   “Antiochus was not merely trying to force the Hebrews to eat non-kosher food. He was trying to do it in a setting where it would obviously carry the connotations of participating in an act of pagan worship.”[11]

2)     Didache 6:2 – “Now concerning food, bear what you are able, but in any case keep strictly away from meat sacrificed to idols, for it involves the worship of dead gods.”

3)     Clementine Homilies 7.8.1-2 (late 200s) – “And this is the service He has appointed:  To worship Him only, and trust only in the Prophet of truth, and to be baptized for the remission of sins, and thus by this pure baptism to be born again unto God by saving water; to abstain from the table of devils, that is, from food offered to idols, from dead carcasses, from animals which have been suffocated or caught by wild beasts, and from blood…”

D)   Biblical uses (look for venue, not menu)

1)     1 Cor. 8-10 – 5 Occurrences

(a)   1 Cor. 8:1 – “food sacrificed to idols”

(b)   1 Cor. 8:4 – “food offered to idols”

(c)   vv. 6-7 – Quote and ref. to Ex. 32:6 (golden calf). The association was with idol worship and the festivities associated with it.

(d)   1 Cor. 8:7 – “food as really offered to an idol”

(e)   1 Cor. 8:10 – “food offered to idols”

(i)    *v. 10 – “eating in an idol’s temple”

(ii)  It’s not the food that’s bad, it’s the venue and the association with idolatry

(f)    1 Cor. 10:19 – “food offered to idols”

(i)    It’s not the FOOD that’s the problem

(ii)  “participating with demons”, “cup of demons”, “table of demons”

(iii)                              The VENUE is the problem. It’s participating in a pagan worship ritual, even if you don’t believe in the pagan god.

(g)   v. 28 uses ἱερόθυτος. Paul used a different word to refer to innocent meat that is eaten at home.

E)    Extra notes

1)     What does it mean to abstain from what has been strangled and from blood?

(a)   Perhaps this is just a reference to pagan sacrifice methods.

(b)   Ben Witherington refers to Greek Magical Papyri (XII.14-95) – “Take also on the first day seven living creatures and strangle them; one cock, a partridge, a wren… Do not make a burnt offering of any of these; instead, taking them in your hand strangle them, while holding them up to your Eros [Greek god of love], until each of the creatures is suffocated and their breath enters him. After that place the strangled creatures on the altar together with aromatic plants of every variety.”[12]

(c)   From GK Beale, Idols, p. 239, Jewish writing, Joseph and Aseneth – “It is not fitting for a man who worships God, who will bless with his mouth the living God and eat blessed bread of life and drink a blessed cup of immortality and anoint himself with blessed ointment of incorruptibility to kiss a strange woman who will bless with her mouth dead and dumb idols and eat from their table bread of strangulation and drink from their libation a cup of insidiousness and anoint herself with ointment of destruction. But a man who worships God will kiss . . . [those] who bless with their mouths the living God. Likewise for a woman who worships God it is not fitting to kiss a strange man, because this is an abomination before the Lord God. (Jos. and As. 8:5-7).”

2)     What about blood?

(a)   Possibly priest tasting the blood of the sacrifice

(i)    Oglivie, Romans and their Gods, pp. 49ff.

(b)   Possibly a reference to murder.

3)     ειδωλοθυτον and πορνεια TOGETHER

(a)   “While sexual immorality may well not have occurred on an everyday basis in a pagan temple dinner party, the point is that early Jewish Christians believed it happened with enough regularity in those venues to warn against it.”[13]

(b)   OT – temple prostitutes (Gen. 34:21-22; Deut.  23:17-18; 1 Kgs. 14:24; 15:12; 22:46; 2 Kgs. 23:7; Job 36:14; Hos. 4:14; Mic. 1:7).

(c)   Num. 25:1-2; 31:16 – Israel’s sin at Baal Peor.

(d)   2 Macc. 6:3-5

(i)    Pollution of the Jerusalem temple under Antiochus.

(ii)  “3 Harsh and utterly grievous was the onslaught of evil. 4 For the temple was filled with debauchery and reveling by the Gentiles, who dallied with prostitutes and had intercourse with women within the sacred precincts, and besides brought in things for sacrifice that were unfit. 5 The altar was covered with abominable offerings that were forbidden by the laws.”

(e)   1 Thess. – Paul complied with the decree

(i)    1 Thess. 1:9 – They “…turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God”

(ii)  1 Thess. 4:1-8 – πορνεια of the Gentiles prohibited

(f)    Rev. 2:13-14

(i)    “where Satan dwells” probably refers to Pergamum temple built in 29 BC to Augustus.

(ii)  Connection between ειδωλοθυτον and πορνεια

(iii)                    POINT – Stay away from temples.

(g)   Rev. 2:20

(h)   Where are you going to find ειδωλοθυτον and πορνεια together? In a temple setting.

5)     POINT

A)   In Acts 15 the apostles and elders are all on the same page; so they write to the Gentiles – You DON’T have to become Jews or abide by Jewish laws in order to be saved.

B)    BUT…you can’t keep on being a pagan idol worshipper either.

1)     Doing the things you used to do,

2)     Going to the places you used to go,

3)     Hanging out and eating at the “table of demons” where there sexual immorality happening.

C)    Summary: You don’t have to be a Jew; but you sure can’t keep on being a pagan.

Application

1)     Even though these are circumstances that we are likely never going to experience, there is a principle here for all of us about what it means to leave our old manner of sinful living and to live a life wholly devoted to God in heaven.

2)     1 Pet. 4:1-5

A)   We don’t do that anymore.

B)    Our friends and people in the world don’t get it. They don’t understand and they’re surprised that we don’t do that anymore.

C)    We don’t live for human passions, but for the will of God.

3)     Col. 3:5-15

[1] Ajith Fernando, Acts, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1998), 419.

[2] I. Howard Marshall, Acts: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 5, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1980), 268.

[3] I. Howard Marshall, “Acts,” in Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI;  Nottingham, UK: Baker Academic;  Apollos, 2007), 593.

[4] Sources: Witherington, Ben, III. The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1998, pp. 460ff.; Witherington, Ben, III. What’s in the Word: Rethinking the Socio-Rhetorical Character of the New Testament. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2009. Chapter 7: Eidolothuton, ppf. 89ff.; Witherington, Ben, III. “Not So Idle Thoughts about Eidolothuton,” Tyndale Bulletin 44.2 (1993): 237-254.; Support for BW3 in Rev. 2:14, Beale, G. K. The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text. New International Greek Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI; Carlisle, Cumbria: W.B. Eerdmans; Paternoster Press, 1999.

[5] Ben Witherington III, What’s in the Word: Rethinking the Socio-Rhetorical Character of the New Testament (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2009), 92.

[6] Ben Witherington III, What’s in the Word: Rethinking the Socio-Rhetorical Character of the New Testament (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2009), 92. Emphasis original.

[7] Ben Witherington III, What’s in the Word: Rethinking the Socio-Rhetorical Character of the New Testament (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2009), 93.

[8] Ted Cabal et al., The Apologetics Study Bible: Real Questions, Straight Answers, Stronger Faith (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2007), 1648.

[9] John D. Barry et al., Faithlife Study Bible (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2012), Ac 15:20.

[10] Ben Witherington III, What’s in the Word: Rethinking the Socio-Rhetorical Character of the New Testament (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2009), 95–96.

[11] Ben Witherington III, What’s in the Word: Rethinking the Socio-Rhetorical Character of the New Testament (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2009), 92.

[12] Ben Witherington III, The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1998).

[13] Ben Witherington III, What’s in the Word: Rethinking the Socio-Rhetorical Character of the New Testament (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2009), 98.